austérité
French, noun/ɔs.te.ʁi.te/
austérité is spelled A-U-S-T-É-R-I-T-É (9 letters) and appears 7.6 times per million words in written French, the 8,212th most frequent French word form (wordfreq, 2021 data). Austérité is a French feminine noun meaning “austerity, severity, rigidity” (English Wiktionary, September 2026). The French Wiktionary (Wiktionnaire) defines it as “Rigueur des pratiques et des doctrines religieuses, mortification des sens et de l’esprit”.
What does austérité mean in English?
noun
- 1
feminineausterity, severity, rigidity
- 2
femininedestitution
- 3
femininedeficit cutting
politique d'austérité
Source: English Wiktionary, French section, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0).
How French dictionaries define it
noun: 1. Rigueur des pratiques et des doctrines religieuses, mortification des sens et de l’esprit. 2. Sévérité. 3. Dépouillement ; laideur ; froideur. 4. Simplicité mêlée de gravité.
The definition in the French Wiktionary (Wiktionnaire), in French.
Source: French Wiktionary (Wiktionnaire), dump of September 1, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org.
Forms of austérité
- austérités plural
Source: English Wiktionary and French Wiktionary (Wiktionnaire) (dumps of September 2, 2026 and September 1, 2026).
How do you pronounce austérité?
- /ɔs.te.ʁi.te/
- /os.te.ʁi.te/
- \ɔs.te.ʁi.te\
Sources: English Wiktionary, French Wiktionary (Wiktionnaire) (dumps of September 2, 2026 and September 1, 2026); recordings from Wikimedia Commons.
English words that translate to austérité
Source: the translation tables of the English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026.
How common is austérité in French?
austérité appears 7.6 times per million words in written French.
Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).